Panel bridges for Route 1856 in Costa Rica
Facts and Figures:
Place/Country: various places/Costa Rica
Completion: 2014 - 2015
Project type: Panel Bridges, Bailey-type Bridges
Client: CONAVI
Description:
Route 1856 (locally known as Trocha Fronteriza) runs for nearly 160 km alongside the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, mostly parallel to the river San Juan amid dense rain forest. In 2011, the Costa Rican government initiated construction of a route to provide permanent access to this remote area.
As building a road through dense jungle poses significant challenges, the road authorities opted for the installation of prefabricated panel (Bailey type) bridges made up of interchangeable elements. They are easy to handle and simple to build. Waagner Biro was awarded the contract for supplying 6 single-lane panel bridges (Bailey type bridges) in early spring 2014. The bridges were immediately dispatched and received by the client’s engineers within a few weeks only. A few months later, the client, due to the satisfactory reception of the bridges, decided to purchase another three bridges for installation within 2015.
Of the 9 delivered bridges, four were supplied with a span of 140 feet (42.7m) each, three with a span of 120 feet (36.6m), and two with a span of 100 feet (30.48m). Waagner-Biro panel bridges have proven to be a technically feasible and economic solution to meeting the emergency bridge requirements of the Costa Rican government. Today the new road and bridges connect villages which had largely been isolated from the rest of the country, allowing even ambulance, police and local teachers to go to places that previously could not have been reached easily.
